4 ms·

Why is it ridiculous? The goal of a computer program is to solve a problem. The Perl script solves the problem. It handles all of the weird edge cases a re-writ

by w4 3y ago

Why is it ridiculous? The goal of a computer program is to solve a problem. The Perl script solves the problem. It handles all of the weird edge cases a re-write would rediscover. Re-writing it would take engineer time away from other priorities. And a re-write in a new language offers no guarantee that Microsoft wouldn't find themselves in the exact same situation 10 years hence if the language they chose for the re-write falls out of favor. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

moffkalast 3y ago
Because it's an external dependency that must be installed manually in certain cases? A site must be up to host downloads for this prehistoric thing, and those binaries must be built, tested, and kept up to date by someone who might one day just vanish once they become bored of thanklessly maintaining a holy relic. Yes it may take more effort to rewrite it natively now into whichever language the latex compiler is written in otherwise, the real braindead decision was not starting out that way. I mean shit, a modern equivalent would be of having to install python to use rustc or something.
- kergonath 3y ago
  > Because it's an external dependency that must be installed manually in certain cases? It is everywhere. About the only case where you’d need that is on Windows but then if you are installing LaTeX on Windows getting Perl is a tiny bit of the complexity of the whole thing. > A site must be up to host downloads for this prehistoric thing, and those binaries must be built, tested, and kept up to date by someone who might one day just vanish once they become bored of thanklessly maintaining a holy relic. It’s not any more prehistoric than emacs, bash, or GCC; its latest version was published about a month ago. The CPAN is perfectly able to handle downloads. And it’s going to be in the repositories of all Linux distributions for the foreseeable future, considering how many tools depend on it. It is under active development; I don’t know where you got the idea that it was one guy in his basement doing it. > Yes it may take more effort to rewrite it natively now into whichever language the latex compiler is written in otherwise, the real braindead decision was not starting out that way. The real braindead decision is to jump on every language du jour just because. There is an optimum and I am sure at some point it will get rewritten in something else (see lualatex for example), but we cannot rewrite everything that works from the ground up every time a new shiny language shows up. Latex does not rust but I am sure at some point someone will find a clever pun and there’ll be a Show HN about it. In the meantime raging because a bit of software use some random language is not very productive or helpful. > I mean shit, a modern equivalent would be of having to install python to use rustc or something. From my experience rustc is not easier to install on Windows than Perl. On Linux it does not matter as everything is in the repos anyway.

by w4 3y ago

moffkalast 3y ago

Because it's an external dependency that must be installed manually in certain cases? A site must be up to host downloads for this prehistoric thing, and those binaries must be built, tested, and kept up to date by someone who might one day just vanish once they become bored of thanklessly maintaining a holy relic. Yes it may take more effort to rewrite it natively now into whichever language the latex compiler is written in otherwise, the real braindead decision was not starting out that way. I mean shit, a modern equivalent would be of having to install python to use rustc or something.

kergonath 3y ago
> Because it's an external dependency that must be installed manually in certain cases? It is everywhere. About the only case where you’d need that is on Windows but then if you are installing LaTeX on Windows getting Perl is a tiny bit of the complexity of the whole thing. > A site must be up to host downloads for this prehistoric thing, and those binaries must be built, tested, and kept up to date by someone who might one day just vanish once they become bored of thanklessly maintaining a holy relic. It’s not any more prehistoric than emacs, bash, or GCC; its latest version was published about a month ago. The CPAN is perfectly able to handle downloads. And it’s going to be in the repositories of all Linux distributions for the foreseeable future, considering how many tools depend on it. It is under active development; I don’t know where you got the idea that it was one guy in his basement doing it. > Yes it may take more effort to rewrite it natively now into whichever language the latex compiler is written in otherwise, the real braindead decision was not starting out that way. The real braindead decision is to jump on every language du jour just because. There is an optimum and I am sure at some point it will get rewritten in something else (see lualatex for example), but we cannot rewrite everything that works from the ground up every time a new shiny language shows up. Latex does not rust but I am sure at some point someone will find a clever pun and there’ll be a Show HN about it. In the meantime raging because a bit of software use some random language is not very productive or helpful. > I mean shit, a modern equivalent would be of having to install python to use rustc or something. From my experience rustc is not easier to install on Windows than Perl. On Linux it does not matter as everything is in the repos anyway.